Made in...

Early on in my budding young motorcycle career, I made a point of first, riding my bicycle to the nearest motorcycle shops, then Edmonton Transit to those farther afield.  Once I was actually motorized at age thirteen, I was truly "liberated" and it was nothing for me to ride over to United Cycle on White Avenue or Alberta Cycle out on 118th.  Even Northern Cycle (sold Ducati's and various home appliances)





Most of the bikes you saw on dealership floors in them days were Harley's, BSA's, Triumph's, Norton's.  There were Jawa's and CZ's at the specialty shops as well some truly weird stuff like the odd James or Villiers or Velocette's here and there.


A few shops were carrying then newly arrived Japanese bikes, mostly small stuff as that was all they made.

Honda's of course, Yamaha's, Suzuki's and here and there... Kawasaki's, with the occasional Bridgestone 175 on a showroom floor.

Some of the shops were really old fashioned like Al Klatt's HD on 95St (if memory serves) some were ultra modern like United Cycle for example.

As I rode from shop to shop on my S-90, I envied the Brits and the Sportster's and the Italians.

Pretty much everywhere you went, the old boys still ruled, but of course the Japanese were beginning to become commonplace.  There were more Honda's on the showroom floor at Alberta Cycle than BSA's by then.  Even when I bought my first BIG bike, an R60/5 BMW, I had to "order it"  Indeed they only sold about a dozen of them but I would suspect hundreds of little Honda's.

It was not uncommon to hear the expressions "Jap junk/Jap scrap" regularly amongst the faithfull!

Indeed, it seemed they only made small bikes, not "real" bikes.  Of course we all know what happened to the Old timers' ... most of them went the way of the Dodo and Unicorn... off into the sunset of motorcycle oblivion, extinct.

Since making this huge move, which has been such a pleasure at times (!?@#) I have had the opportunity to buy a bunch of stuff from various country's, there has been "made in" signs on a variety of items.

These days we hear an awful lot about the Chinese making cheap crap that doesn't fit, won't last, is junk... Hmmm deja vu, where have I heard that before.  Cheap crap scooters, cheap crap desks and chairs, cheap crap T.V.'s...

Here's what I have found in my impromptu survey taken over the last 5 weeks assembling stuff from around the globe.

Made in USA has been typically well built, directions in concise (but not always) English and hardware has been generally of good quality and all there.

Made in Mexico is on par with the US stuff and only now and again some awkward English translations.

Made in Canada has been generally the poorest quality and in some cases astoundingly poor.  Makes me wonder how some of these companies can stay in business.  Typically the greatest amount of returns have been home made stuff!  I usually look for the Maple Leaf and all too often, it is becoming rare to find.

Then there's those nasty Chinese, the current scourge of every protectionist lobby out there.  What have I found...

Well apart from some truly laughable directions which are reminiscent of  early Japanese owner's manuals, their stuff has been well labeled, easy to assemble and of pretty good quality, on par in fact with the USA.

Here's the kicker... guys, we have been living in a global economy for decades now.  Get with the program.  The largest market for motorized two wheelers is located in China, and of course it's neighboring countries.  I'm not commenting on cheap labor or asbestos/lead in toys/human rights issues in this Blog... what I am saying that in my wee little world putting together furniture as of late, the Chinese have got it down pretty well, and in most cases better than their CDN counterparts.